Vulnerability in Sudan Khartoum and Juba Sara Pantuliano House of - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

City Limits: Urbanisation and Vulnerability in Sudan

Khartoum and Juba

Sara Pantuliano

House of Lords, 25th January 2011

Rapid urbanisation

• 40% of Sudan’s population reside in towns
• Khartoum: 5 million people; Juba: 600,000 - with

further increases expected

• Until 1970s: pull factors – economic growth
• 1970s onwards: push factors – drought and conflict

with high levels of displacement

• Post-CPA: a combination of both. Many people have

been IDPs, refugees and/or economic migrants at various points in their lives

• Majority of urban poor seeking better livelihoods
• pportunities, security and services

Policy overview

• Policy formulation has fallen behind the reality of

rapid urbanisation

• Long history of urban planning, but not always

implemented, or overwhelmed by large population movements

• Strategies for economic growth and poverty

alleviation rural not urban focused

• Shifting but generally negative policy towards

IDPs

Governance & leadership

• Parallel and overlapping systems of

administration – North and South

• Khartoum:

– Popular committees at community level – multiple roles but highly politicised – New generation of urban IDP leaders

• Juba

– Dual capital: policy of decentralisation clashing with recentralisation of key powers – Contested governance at community level

Urban economy

• Economic boom associated with stark and

growing inequalities

• Close links between economic activity and political

power

• Dramatic rise in value of real estate and cost of

living

• Unskilled labour – growing numbers and

competition from neighbouring countries

• Women increasingly primary breadwinners
• Risky/illegal livelihoods strategies
• Unemployment of youth linked to gang culture

Land issues

• Demand for urban land outstripping

availability – proliferation of informal settlements

• Evictions, demolitions and relocation

– impact of land classification system and master plans – poor people being moved off prime value land

• Juba - forceful land grabbing on the rise
• Khartoum – impact of GPRs

Access to land

• Cumbersome, ambiguous and expensive land

allocation process

• Unclear eligibility of post ’97 IDPs Khartoum
• Accelerated land registration in Khartoum pre-

CPA and pre-referendum

• Juba – corrupt and contentious land allocation

process

Services and urban infrastructure

• Service infrastructure failed to keep pace with

rising urban population

• Municipalities unable to provide effective

services

• Inadequate access to clean water a major

problem

• Unaffordability:

– concentration of services in city centres – poorest households often faced with highest costs for accessing services

Environmental consequences

• Deforestation associated with rapid urbanisation
• High levels of pollution:

– water & soil contamination related to poor solid waste management – cholera outbreaks – poorest at most risk in peripheral areas

• Poorest settlements on land at high risk of

flooding (impact on health)

• Lack of enforcement of environment protection

legislation

Social consequences

• Growing insecurity, crime and weak rule of law
• Tensions related to wealth and economic status

rather than ethnicity

• Increasing numbers of street children and

associated exploitation

• Impact on gender relations – positive and

negative

• Implications for the post-referendum period?

International assistance

• History of strong rural bias
• Assumption that urban population is ‘alright’
• Engagement limited to:

– humanitarian assistance to IDP camps – annual contingency planning for floods – contingency planning for elections & referendum – some micro-finance initiatives – urban planning in Khartoum and Juba

Challenges….but also

• pportunities
• Opportunities for private sector and small

business development

• Opportunities to create better educated

workforce (both women and men)

• Opportunities for cost-effective provision of

services to all

• Opportunities to harness rural-urban linkages to

the benefit of both

• Opportunities to foster integration of different

ethnic groups